


Jack Kelly (no. 3)

by FanfictionShadow



Series: Newsies Headcanons [3]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Implied Transphobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Not Fully Canon Compliant, Trans Male Character, because of the time period they live in, but Jack has the newsies family, i am sorry if you feel i represented this wrong, i mean no offense if i got something wrong, oh yeah Jack's parents are here, same reason, so here's the third, this one's a bit different, this one's a bit worse cause it's his unnamed parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-26 00:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18271946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanfictionShadow/pseuds/FanfictionShadow
Summary: Jack Kelly has a lot of secrets, just like any person. Some of them are basically harmless, like his skill with painting and drawing. Some are a bit more dangerous, like what really happened to him in the Refuge, and how he escaped all those times.And then there's his deepest, darkest secret: Jack Kelly was born as Frances Sullivan.





	Jack Kelly (no. 3)

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings: minor character deaths, vague child abuse, implied transphobia, implied homophobia, if I forgot anything please tell me. As always, I love when you read my fics, but if you are even the slightest uncomfortable then don't. Your mental health is more important than my fics.
> 
> I am not transgender, so I apologize if I offend anyone. If anyone has any improvements for me, please let me know - I always welcome constructive criticism. I wrote this fic because I thought it was an interesting angle to look at Jack Kelly through, and I mean no offense by it.
> 
> Also, in this, Jack binds his chest with bandages. From reading other fanfictions, by people who have said they're transgender in their author's notes, I've heard that binding that way is bad, so please don't do so! There are binders you can buy, or there are other ways to feel comfortable, but please don't harm yourself!

Jack Kelly has a lot of secrets, just like any person. Some of them are basically harmless, like his skill with painting and drawing. Some are a bit more dangerous, like what really happened to him in the Refuge, and how he escaped all those times.  
  
And then there's his deepest, darkest secret: Jack Kelly was born as Frances Sullivan.  
  
  
  
Jack's father was... well, not really supportive, but he was all Jack had. When he walked around in pants and suspenders and a vest, and his mother screamed and ripped them off and forced him into a dress, his father would find him another pair of pants. When Jack found a knife and cut off his hair, and his mother shrieked and turned the knife on him, his father brought bandages to stop the bleeding. When people referred to Jack as his son, he just nodded along, instead of Jack' mother, who just started screaming.  
  
Jack's father would rather a normal child, that was clear, but he wouldn't force Jack to be a perfect image of a daughter.  
  
Jack's father wasn't supportive, or loving, but he was all Jack had.  
  
  
  
Jack's father had his life slowly drained out of him, job after harsh job wearing him down until his body couldn't take it anymore and he fell down in the middle of labor, never getting up again. Jack was the one to see him fall and to find him dead; Jack was the first to reach his body, which was already cold.  
  
Jack was the one to tell his mother.  
  
After he did, after he withstood the hits and the knife and the words that always, always, hurt worse, after he stumbled out of the only home he'd ever known, even though it wasn't much of one, he found himself in an alley, heat slowly leaching out of him the way it drained from his father. Jack was alone, no reason to stay alive, no reason to get up and get warm.  
  
Except he remembered his father. The man who never really connected to him, who couldn't fully love him, but who let him be himself, which was more than anyone else did. Jack remembered his father's cold, lifeless body, never moving again because he let the streets drain his life.  
  
Jack swore to himself that they wouldn't do the same to him.  
  
So he forced himself to his feet, stumbled over to where they had put the body until it could be buried or tossed, and mechanically started to strip the clothes from the corpse. The overshirt, the pants, the suspenders were all taken without any extra sounds or emotions, and then Jack snuck away again, bundling himself up in the shirt and forming the pants into a pillow.  
  
Without his mother hanging over him, and without the dresses staring back at him, Jack slept better in that cold alleyway than he had for years.  
  
He found his mother's body two days later. He felt regret... but also nothing.  
  
  
  
Jack first heard of Santa Fe when his mother was ranting again, cursing the "town full of queers" and swearing that if Jack ever even thought about running there she would hunt him down and make him regret ever being born.  
  
Jack already regretted being born - just not in the way his mother meant.  
  
And after that, Santa Fe became his motivation, his dream - a town full of people like him, where he could just be a regular guy and not fear for his life.  
  
Santa Fe was the greatest - the only - gift his mother had ever given him.  
  
  
  
There was a reason Jack slept on the roof of the Lodging House despite having more than enough for a bed. There was a reason he woke before any of the others, why he wore a too-large overshirt under a too-small vest. There was a reason he hid bandages that were used and put to be discarded, washing out the blood secretly.  
  
Jack snuck bandages to wrap his chest and hide his monthly bleedings. He wore a too-large overshirt to hide his shape and a too-small vest to flatten it. He slept alone on the roof so he could let his chest breathe - when he first started showing he kept it bandaged for a week and ended up with badly bruised ribs - and he woke up before the others so no one came up and caught him unprepared. Jack hid his body from the rest of the newsies, his mother's harsh words and his father's apathy haunting him, and he didn't let anybody in.  
  
Until Crutchie.  
  
When Crutchie first came to the Lodging House, he bunked with the others. Jack didn't know his secrets and Crutchie didn't know Jack's. It came out slowly, yet way too quickly, and when Jack finally understood Crutchie's discomfort around the other guys - his fear of not being able to hide his attraction - the roof got one more resident. Crutchie never though Jack any different or wrong for being a boy, and Jack returned the favor with Crutchie.  
  
  
  
Jack was always secretive, no matter how open he seemed sometimes, and no one knew this better than the Manhattan newsies. They knew Jack, and later Crutchie, needed their privacy. They knew how much Snyder hated Jack, how many times Jack had been to the Refuge, and how terrified Jack was of Crutchie ending up there too. They knew that sometimes, Jack would disappear for a few hours, or sometimes, Crutchie would refuse to even be in the same room as them for days. The Manhattan newsies knew that Jack had secrets, and later Crutchie did too, and that those secrets were important and worth protecting.  
  
And if they helped make protecting them just that much easier, well... no one would need to know.


End file.
